KDE 4.1 release ups free desktop ante

After six months of development since the release of the much publicized 4.0, the KDE project has unveiled version 4.1 which includes many new bug fixes and feature enhancements.

KDE 4.1 is the first KDE4 release to contain the KDE-PIM personal information management suite with e-mail client KMail, the KOrganizer planner, RSS reader Akregator, and other components integrated into the Kontact application.
Plasma, the new desktop shell introduced in KDE 4.0, has matured to the point where it can replace the KDE 3 shell for most users, according to the developers.

From KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1 there have been 20,803 commits to the project along with 15432 translation check-ins. Some 35,000 commits have been done in work branches, some of them being merged into KDE 4.1.

In addition to the high number of commits, KDE's Dirk Muller said KDE's sysadmin team has created 166 new accounts for developers on KDE's Subversion server.